Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Composer who was the first woman to receive an Ivan Avello Award and is one of the world's most performed living composers.
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92: IV. Allegro con brio
this is the fourth movement from Beethoven's Symphony No. seven. The thing about it is it's a recording which I probably would have heard conducted by Andrea Previn. When I heard this symphony I was not sideways and I was at my boarding school. Say thirteen, and other kids were listening to Donnie Osbund and Jackson Five, and I would go to bed with a scissette player underneath my pillow and just play it again and again, the energy, the life in it. And then, because I was a bit obsessed with Andre Preven, my friend Bobby Norkey somehow got tickets for us to go to the World Festival Hall. And somehow he got that stage, and somehow I met Andre Preven. And Bobby says, My friend really, I couldn't speak, she says, Erin and really, really loves you.
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
To be honest, Ella Fitzgerald, I consider her a composer. I I don't have the words to describe. She's beyond a singer, beyond a musician. The fact that she lived and walked on this earth is incredible to me.
The Firebird (L'Oiseau de feu): Introduction
well, I adore Stravinsky and I thought I'd take the Firebird, the first ballet that Stravinsky did. I remember going with my good friend David Matthews, composer, to the ballet was on at Opera House and we had tickets to see Firebird, Les Noss, and there's another ballet I can't remember. But anyway, we were sitting in our seats and, you know, the ballet was about to start and then somebody came and said to us, Oh, you're sitting in the wrong row. So I said, it's okay, I'll climb in front. And I did, I was wearing a short skirt. You climbed over. You didn't go out. No, I climbed. And then d sorts. And I'm trapped between two seats. So whenever I hear the opening, I feel really embarrassed.
I am going to be taking I am sitting in a room by Alvin Lussier. I adored Alvin Lussier. I met him at the Minds Festival in San Francisco in nineteen ninety nine. Alvin was a great American experimental composer. He died just a few years ago. And he was very interested in in the acoustics of space and what you could use sound, what you could get out of them. So he's I think Alvin has changed my life because I never go into a room now without thinking what would Alvin do with this room, what sound frequency do you get from it? And the thing about I'm sitting in a room is that Alvin, who had a stutter, he records himself and then he plays the tape recording back into the room, re-recording it and then that's repeated till in the end we get the sound and frequencies of the room, including picky up on his stutter. He's just this magician and I really miss him.
Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043: II. Largo ma non tantoFavourite
Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman with the New York Philharmonic
So this is the second movement from Bach's double violin concerto in D minor. And it's performed by Isaac Stern and Itza Perlman. And, you know, violins don't play the way Isaac Stern and It's at Perlman play, but I love that style, you know, full fat vibrato. And the other thing about it, recently my violin concerto was premiere, the youth premiere was with um Kansas City Symphony Orchestra and Michael Stern. The son of Isaac Stern is a music director who was partly responsible for my own finding. I would never have foreseen that when I was listening to this recording as a teenager.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)
I don't know how to say this, but I'm obsessed with Signed Seal Delivered, I'm Yours by Stevie Wonder. It's this recording on the Tannamotown label that changed the quality of my driving from Inverness Airport to Stratty Point Lighthouse because the way the drum is Bob Babbitt on on bass, but the way the it it sounds so simple, but the way everything comes in, I think it's one of the sexiest songs ever written. And I just play it on loop. So, this is when you're driving to the lighthouse where you're going to be. Three and a half hour drive. I'll be playing it non-stop.
This song, What's Up Doc? is probably the first song I ever wrote. I sat down at the piano, just rolled out. And what's special to me about this is it's the recording of it. It was one of the first sort of recordings I ever made with Tim Harris on bass and Simon Pearson, a wonderful drummer who I only just recently heard died last year in his early fifties. There's nothing he couldn't play and this little song has got these tricksy little rhythms and it brings back those memories too, but also the days of making an album which actually is yet to be probably released of where I wanted to make music which you can say is inspired by pop but in a chamber music way where you're playing without the click track with musicians who you love and just the joy of songwriting really.
Peter Grimes, Op. 33: (extract)
Benjamin Britton is a hero of mine, and I would say his opera Peter Grimes is still to me something to aim for in operatic writing of any time. Every note in it feels necessary, and with my friend Nick Mercer, we went to see a concert version of it. It was Edward Gardner. We loved it so much because well, it made me realize that in this score you don't need sets, you don't need lighting, you don't need costumes, everything is there in this music. It's an incredible score. If I could even oh, you know, I've written twenty-two operas, I've not written a Peter Grimes, it's it's fabulous.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:51What were your earliest memories of the piano and your relationship with it?
The piano came into our house because my father was writing songs, had a beautiful voice and he wanted somewhere to compose on. But we weren't sent to pianists until I was about nine years old. But my cousin Stephanie showed me where the notes were. And ever since I started playing it, I would go to bed as a child dreaming of the piano. And I found it very hard to be separated from it. And to me, it was a place of dreams, of discovery and learning. So I would play my, you know, my weekly piano pieces, but I'd learn them very quickly, like in Adeas. So then I would use the piano to look for other music just to play through. And we had a piano stool full of things like wartime tunes and Gracie Fields. And your fingers are going as you talk there. Oh, yes. Do you feel that when you think about it? When you think about playing, do you get that itch? The physicality of it is obviously important. Definitely. I mean, there was a time we would go to New York every summer for six weeks. And my mother told me much later that she actually went to see a doctor to say, is it okay that my daughter's not playing the piano for six weeks because she's becoming very distressed? So it's a tactile thing and it's the way, certainly as a composer, it's like your mind and body are totally connected.
Presenter asks
11:30What kind of impact do you think your parents leaving had on you and how do you think it shaped you looking back?
I had to explain things to my younger sisters, Karen and Judith, and I was very entertaining. Like I was explaining, we're so lucky we have two sets of parents, but after a while you do realise that your parents, you know, they're not at your school concerts, they don't really know anything about you. What I know about my mum and dad, their focus was definitely on each other. That's just how it was. And that practically speaking, to be brought up by Arthur and Reni was by far the best thing. But it's just there was always these questions that were never answered.
The keepsakes
The book
Biggest collection of Bach you can source
Johann Sebastian Bach
To me Bach is this endless font of inventiveness, joy, passion, and, I would say, genius, whose influence continues today.
The luxury
A Steinway D grand piano with a cake-dispensing middle pedal, on the stage of Wigmore Hall
I would like Wigmore Hall, but particularly because I want to be sitting on the stage of the Wigmore Hall or playing the Steinway D. But the thing about this piano is the middle pedal operates a self-dispensing cake flap and it'll probably be Buttonberg cake.
Presenter asks
13:22You once said, 'I'll always know that the people who gave me life were of the opinion that I wasn't worth coming back for.' Have you been able to make peace with your parents' choice?
The thing is, I absolutely love my m mother and father. I love them un you know, unconditionally, and every child does. And particularly in the their later years, I would be in New York often. And, you know, the strange thing would happen, especially when I was there, which told me that I was their first child. I'd wake up in the morning, really quite early, and I'd just jump into bed with them, and they would sort of make room for me. We loved each other. It's that simple. But let's say there were a few flaws in their parenting. But you were able to get to a better place. I still feel angry with them because I think to be brought up in that amount of confusion is not fair to a child.
Presenter asks
32:18In what way did the rejection from established figures like Michael Viner affect you, and how close did you come to giving up?
At that time there weren't many women composers being promoted and Michael Vineyard was then I shouldn't speak badly of him, but the prevailing attitude was that women weren't to be taken seriously. And he said, Oh, come up to my office and we'll have a good laugh over your school [scores]. … There was a moment in my thirties where I remember thinking life was really, really hard, no doors were opening. And I thought, just be realistic, go away for. I actually spoke to myself and says, go away for a few days. And come back with your decision. This is me talking to myself. And I actually did, and I went away. … I came back to myself and I said, E, I'm gonna do this.
Presenter asks
38:27How did you respond to the social media abuse when your reimagining of Jerusalem was perceived as controversial?
I was really shocked at the tarade and it became a target for something, which I thought overshadowing the fact that the BBC were working so hard to produce a [Proms], it was almost impossible for the delight of all of us. I spent the next day, Sunday, just going through deleting, deleting, deleting, hundreds and hundreds of messages, very abusive, thinking, well, actually, when was the last time somebody really talked about a new piece of music? … I'm proud of that piece of music. It it it all I did was put an introduction that that was very delicate, and then we moved by the end into the rousing, recognizable thing of Jerusalem. And the other thing is that Jerusalem has had so many reimaginings, hundreds of them.
Presenter asks
43:45You once said that 'for music I've made myself lonely and it has eaten me alive.' What was on your mind?
You know, there's a certain solitude. You have to have us compose, and there's certain times you know, nobody can help you and it really is it can be tricky psychologically until you learn to accept it. But the payback is like thousandfold because then you're work if you're lucky enough to have your work performed, that's the thing I live for, you know, whether it's a small rehearsal, a huge concert, but it comes from a place of um solitude and quiet.
“I would go to bed as a child dreaming of the piano. And I found it very hard to be separated from it. And to me, it was a place of dreams, of discovery and learning.”
“I still feel angry with them because I think to be brought up in that amount of confusion is not fair to a child.”
“and I was very calm but I was I just thought I didn't belong here anymore because I couldn't do the things that I felt I should be doing and so I took as many tablets as I could and then that didn't work so then I went downstairs found some alcohol I had wanted to die”
“I'm a person, honestly, if there's something I want to do and I don't do it, I find it impossible to live.”
“I decided early on, and maybe it's to do with being brought up by a white woman, a mixed household. I never looked for discrimination. I'm sure it was there, but I I've always been good at circumventing things. I think if the if a door's close to me, I will then make a door that I can open.”
“I haven't realized there was a problem with there's certain sacred things that no black person must touch. I as a composer I feel like music belongs to everyone, it always has done.”